The Spanish viejo (“old”) comes from the Latin vetus meaning the same, “old.”

From the same Latin root, we get the English inveterate (an SAT word meaning, a “long-ingrained habit.”) Lets break down the English: the Latin prefix in- means, well, “in” and the “veterate” means “old”, from the same root vetus. So, an inveterate habit is really just a habit you’ve had for a long time!

We can see that the v-j root of viejo maps to the v-t of inveterate. The Latin -t- turning into the -j- sound isn’t that common (more common is that it turns into a -sh- sound, as in syrup and jarabe) but isn’t too uncommon either: we can hear the similarities between -t- and -sh- if we say the sounds together quickly!

The Spanish Acatar (meaning “to follow, obey, respect”) comes from the Latin captare, meaning “to capture, take hold of”. From that root, we get a few English words, including:

• Capture — surprise, surprise.
• Capable — if you’re capable, you take hold of the solutions!
• Captive — if you’re captive, someone else has taken hold of you!
• Cater — the caterer is literally the person who takes hold of the food for you.

The c-(p)t root is visible in all, although the -p- in the -pt- has been lost in a few variations.

Cumplir, the common Spanish meaning, “to finish [doing something]” is — in a moment of, “ah! It’s obvious now that you’ve told me!” — a close cousin of the English, accomplish.

Both come from the Latin meaning “to complete,” accomplere, which comes from the older Latin root complere, meaning, “to fill up” — from which we also get the English complete.

Thus, the c-m-pl of cumplir maps to the c-m-pl of accomplish. Not to mention, the c-m-pl of complete as well.

The English peel comes from the Latin pilus, meaning “hair”, from which we get the Spanish for “hair,” pelo.

More interesting, however, is its Spanish cousin, piel, meaning “skin,” from the related Latin pellis, meaning “hide”.

Your skin, after all, is just a thin covering of your body — just like when you peel the skin off of an apple.

The p-l root is easily visible in all of these.

In the final of our day-of-the-week comparisons, we have Sunday.

In the Latin languages, it is domingo, or a variation of it. These all come from the Latin for God — Deus. Sunday, after all, is the traditional Christian day of prayer and worship for God. It is literally God’s Day.

In the Germanic tradition — well, in the ancient German pantheon of nature Gods, the main God was the Sun himself. Our Sunday is quite literally “sun” – “day”: the day of the sun. The parallel thus continues!

No one quite knows the origin of zapato, Spanish for “shoe.” But the same word — or words from the same root — are still used in Portuguese, French, Italian, and even Arabic and, most shocking of all, Basque (shocking since Basque is unrelated to any other known language).

Most interesting, though, is that from the old French for shoe, savate, which is from the same root as zapato as we can see with the z-p to s-v mapping, do we get the English, sabotage.

Indeed, they say sabotage comes from the word for “shoe” since French workers used to throw their (wooden) shoes into machinery in order to sabotage their factory.

Naufragar (Spanish for “to be shipwrecked”) comes from the Latin Navis meaning “boat.” From that same root we get the English… navigation and navy. The n-v root is clearly visible in all of them.

Almuerzo (Spanish for “lunch”) comes from the Latin morsus, “a small bite.” Lunch is just a really small bite of food!

From the same root morsus, we also get the English for a small bit of food: a morsel. Ahhh! The (al)-m-r-z of almuerzo maps to the m-r-s of morsel.

Asunto (Spanish for “subject,” in the sense of, “theme”) comes from the Latin for the same, assumptus (“taken”) — from which we get the almost identical English, assume.

Interestingly, assumption originally had a fully religious connotation, something we often forget, or I sometimes vaguely remember today: you’re received into heaven. An assumption, in its modern sense, is really just a religious belief actually!

The Latin root assumptus itself comes from ad– (“up, to”) and sumere (“to take”) — so when you assume, you’re really “taking it up”!

The a-s-t of asunto maps clearly to the a-ss-(m)-t of assumption.

Cazar (Spanish for “to hunt”) and the English chase come from the same root: the Latin captiare, also meaning, “to hunt.” What is a chase if not just a calmed-down hunt?

You can see the c-z of cazar map to the ch-s of chase.

And it is perfectly appropriate that the English chase came to us via the French chasier. What are the French good for if not weakening the strong, manly hunt into the more feminine chase?